This PC Downloads and Documents have merged and can't be separated

Just set up an OEM version on Windows 10 Home on a new laptop. After getting it set up, I moved the Music, Pictures, and Videos folders under This PC to a secondary drive. (I did this by right clicking on the folder, going to Location, and selecting a folder on the secondary drive.) This all seems to work fine.

I must have done something horribly wrong when I tried to do the same thing with Downloads and Documents, however. Somehow, under This PC, I now had 2 links called Documents. One has the download arrow icon and the other has a document icon, but both were labeled "Documents" and both pointed to the Documents folder. There was no link to the Downloads folder.

I was able to use the procedure above to change one of them to point to Downloads, but after a reboot, now they both say Downloads, and I have no Documents link under This PC.

It seems like they are logically linked to have the same name and point to the same location, even though they have different icons. I'm at a loss on how to proceed.

Can anyone help me logically disconnect these two things, so I can actually have separate links to Downloads and Documents again?

Thanks!

Aikiscott

In File Explorer navigate to C:\Users\<Username> - <Username> is your username. What do you see there?

One documents folder is under "Quick Access" while another appears under "This PC". If you only want to see it once, disable Quick Access.
How to Disable Quick Access in File Explorer on Windows 10

LCDR,

See below. Under This PC there are 2 Downloads folders. In the actual <username> folder on C:, there are no Downloads, Music, or Videos folders.

So, under This PC, I have the following entries that point as shown:
Desktop c:\users\scott\desktop
Downloads e:\downloads
Downloads e:\downloads
Music e:\music
Pictures e:\pictures
Videos e:\videos

All of these are as I intended except one of the Downloads folder should be Documents and point to e:\documents.
BTW, retired CDR here, so I dig your username. Much appreciate the help.

NavyLCDR said:

In File Explorer navigate to C:\Users\<Username> - <Username> is your username. What do you see there?

Thanks, but that's not it. Check out the screenshot reply to NavyLCDR. There are 2 Downloads links under This PC. I have the Quick Access stuff collapsed.

Mint Waxed said:

One documents folder is under "Quick Access" while another appears under "This PC". If you only want to see it once, disable Quick Access.
How to Disable Quick Access in File Explorer on Windows 10

@aikiscott,

What happens when you right click on the second Documents folder under This PC and select Properties, then the Location tab? Try clicking Restore Default.

The Downloads folder with the down arrow icon should be the true Downloads library. The Downloads folder under that should be your Documents folder.

When I right-click on the Downloads name that has the documents icon, select Properties, Location, Restore Default, it says it will recreate C:\Users\scott\Downloads. I tried to manually change the Downloads part to Documents, and got the following message box to pop up:

Do you want to redirect folder "Downloads" into another system folder "Documents" located at "C:\users\scott\Documents"? If you proceed with redirection you will not be able to separate them or restore default location.

Is this maybe something I did by accident at first, and I'm now permanently hosed? I don't plan on reimaging the computer back to factory restart just for this! It will probably drive me nuts forever, but I really don't want to relive the last week of backing up to the brand new install and re-doing everything from scratch...

Thanks!

NavyLCDR said:

@aikiscott,

What happens when you right click on the second Documents folder under This PC and select Properties, then the Location tab? Try clicking Restore Default.

The Downloads folder with the down arrow icon should be the true Downloads library. The Downloads folder under that should be your Documents folder.

What you can do is create a new, temporary, local user account:
User Account - Add in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Change that account to administrator type:
Account Type - Change in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Log into the temporary account, copy all the data files you want to keep from your old user profile to the new user profile. Delete your original user profile. Then recreate it as a new user account. That should get you back to the default locations for all the library folders.

NavyLCDR,

That was a good idea, thanks. I gave it a shot, but unfortunately I was having some issues with some of the hardware not working under the new user account. It wasn't even a driver issue -- built-in stuff in the laptop was shown as not installed, although the driver software was installed.

After messing with that for a while, I made that call that it was no longer worth it. So, what I did instead was to delete the "Documents" link from my QuickAccess list and then take the actual location of my documents (e:\documents) and pin it to the QuickAccess menu. So now, I need to use QuickAccess rather than ThisPC, but it will still get me to my documents in one click.

I appreciate the help though. I think your idea would have worked perfectly, if it weren't for the unrelated hardware issues I was having.

Bravo zulu!

Aikiscott